The Mandel Files, Volume 2

by Peter F. Hamilton

She bit her lower lip, fighting the tears building behind her eyes. Nothing. Nothing she ever did turned out right.

  The office’s terminal bleeped. Lloyd picked up a handset and listened for a few seconds. ‘It’s Leol Reiger,’ he said. ‘He says he wants to talk to Julia.’

  ‘Talk to him, Sean,’ Victor said. ‘Stall him if you can.’

  Lloyd opened up the communication circuit. The flatscreen remained blank. Charlotte edged well out of the camera’s pick up field.

  ‘This is Governor Francis,’ Sean said.

  ‘Where’s Julia Evans?’ Leol Reiger asked.

  ‘Unavailable. I’m all you’re going to get.’

  ‘OK, Mr Governor, you and I need to come to an arrangement.’

  ‘You have no docking clearance, Mr Reiger, and I’m not authorized to make deals.’

  ‘Never learn, you people, do you? Your SD platforms are fucked, otherwise you would have snuffed us ten minutes ago. We’re coming in. Now how much damage we cause to that very delicate biosphere of yours in the process is down to you.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘I want Charlotte Fielder.’

  Charlotte let out a soft moan, the sound of her heart pounding was very loud, all the glass walls of the office were suddenly rushing towards her. Hands clamped round her upper arms, guiding her into a chair as her legs buckled.

  ‘Have her brought to the docking bay,’ Leol Reiger said.

  ‘Never heard of her,’ Sean said.

  ‘Wrong. She’s been on a bit of a spending spree in your shops today. She’s up here. Find her and bring her to me.’

  ‘Otherwise?’

  ‘We come hunting for her. And you know me, that will become very messy. Guaranteed.’

  ‘What do you want her for?’

  ‘She knows where to find something I’m looking for.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Charlotte gulped. ‘I don’t.’

  Lloyd knelt down beside her, ‘Shush,’ he said softly. ‘It’s all right.’ His arm went round her shoulder.

  She hated herself for being so weak, especially in front of Fabian.

  ‘She tells me where it is, and I pick it up,’ said Leol Reiger, ‘then I leave. Nobody comes to any grief that way. Simple.’

  Sean looked helplessly at Victor. The security chief threw his hands in the air.

  ‘We don’t hand people over to tekmercs,’ Sean said. ‘I suggest you refer back to Clifford Jepson if you want to know where the source of atomic structuring is located, yes?’

  There was a brief pause.

  ‘Gotta hand it to you people,’ said Leol Reiger. ‘You’re well plugged in. So you know what’ll happen if I don’t get that little fuck-dolly. Think about it. You’ve got five minutes.’

  Victor’s fist came down on the desk top. ‘Bloody hell. Why hasn’t Clifford Jepson briefed Reiger on how to contact the alien?’

  ‘Do you want me to recall the crash team back to the airlock complex?’ Lloyd asked anxiously.

  ‘Looks like we’ll have to,’ Victor said. ‘Do we know if Reiger’s spaceplane has a datalink with any of the geosync communication platforms?’

  ‘I’ll get Bernie to run a check on their data traffic,’ Lloyd said.

  ‘Do that. If not, we’ll offer to plug him in to Jepson direct.’

  ‘He’ll want to know why you’re making that kind of offer, yes?’ Sean said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Victor growled. ‘Maybe we can spin him something about not being able to find Charlotte. Hell, we’ve got to give him something.’

  Lloyd picked up a handset, then frowned. ‘Now what?’

  Charlotte turned to look into the command post. There was a commotion round one of the consoles, its operator shouting into his headset mike. Two supervisors stood behind him, leaning over his shoulders.

  Lloyd raised the handset to his face. ‘Bernie, what’s going on?’

  Charlotte instinctively checked on the spaceplane. The undercarriage had unfolded. As she watched, it touched down on the crater wall. The wheels blurred with speed.

  ‘There’s someone in the docking complex,’ Lloyd blurted.

  ‘Not one of my people,’ Sean said. ‘They were all taken out.’

  ‘I wonder,’ Victor said thoughtfully. ‘Lloyd, put the intruder on this screen.’

  Lloyd muttered into the handset. The desk terminal’s flatscreen lit up. It was another of the southern endcap’s interminable stone-walled corridors. Someone was walking along it, dressed in a blue maintenance division jumpsuit.

  ‘Run an ident check on him,’ Victor said.

  Lloyd typed hurriedly on the terminal keyboard.

  The spaceplane had finished its acceleration run. Its nose began to turn in towards the southern endcap.

  ‘Got him,’ Lloyd said.

  Victor bent over to scan the data flowing down the flatscreen.

  ‘His name is Talbot Lombard,’ Lloyd read. ‘Aged forty-one, got his communications technology degree from Hamburg University. Came up to New London eight years ago, employed by Globecast, worked setting up their franchise in the southern endcap. Fired seven years ago for pirating programmes. His return ticket was never used, no record of further employment in New London.’

  ‘A Celestial Apostle,’ Victor said. ‘One who’d know all about Clifford Jepson’s arms trading. And how to get in contact.’

  ‘You think he’s the interface?’

  ‘Has to be,’ Victor said. ‘And he’ll take Leol Reiger straight down into the caves.’

  ‘If Reiger doesn’t shoot him first, yes?’ Sean said.

  ‘So cynical,’ Victor muttered with a grin. He straightened up, pointing two fingers at the big flatscreen outside, and shooting. ‘Got you, Reiger.’

  ‘What about the Dolgoprudnensky spaceplane?’ Sean asked. ‘They’re due to reach us in another ten minutes.’

  ‘I’ll call Pavel Kirilov,’ Charlotte said. ‘If you want. Explain that I haven’t really got the generator data.’ She thought of facing that cold clinical expression again, and shivered; but she desperately wanted to do something right, try and repair a little bit of the damage.

  ‘I think it’s a bit late for that,’ Victor said.

  ‘That’s not the answer, anyway,’ Fabian said. She heard the old sneer in his voice.

  ‘No?’ Victor asked.

  ‘Course not. It’s simple, stupid. This is your story: The second spaceplane is assaulting New London, it’s already knocked out your defences; and the Governor officially requires assistance in dealing with it. So call Greg’s Russian general friend, the one that’s authorized to use the Co-Defence League’s Strategic Defence platforms, and explain exactly who’s inside that space-plane.’

  Charlotte watched Victor and Lloyd exchange a nonplussed glance, then gasped. On the big flatscreen behind them, black armour-suited figures were emerging from the spaceplane and bouncing in long steps across the crater wall towards the docking complex.

  37

  The Celestials’ village gave Suzi the fucking creeps. A jungle village buried inside an asteroid, mega-primitive sophistication. It was a real sense tripper. Twenty billion tonnes of rock above, and a vacuum infinity below. Bad.

  She worked hard to block out the conflict.

  Melvyn was doing his job properly. Sending scouts into the surrounding catacombs, building a detailed picture of the zone. Major fault zone – why the fuck did Julia have to call it that? And just how many minor zones were there, exactly?

  She sidestepped her way along one of the cracks leading off from the village cave. At least that tit of an armourer back at Listoel had been right about her knee, the suit carried it well. The crack opened into a dry cave with a long fissure along its sharply sloping bottom. The rock glittered in the infrared beam her helmet lights gave off. Tiny flecks of metal frozen in silica. She couldn’t see the base of the fissure, and it was too thin for anyone to climb. Not even the Celestials had used the cave.

  She used her rangefinder laser to map the cave accuratel
y, and spliced the result in with her inertial guidance unit data. When she scuffled her way back into the village cave the package was added to the composite Melvyn was assembling. He updated her own ’ware in return.

  The catacomb map was superimposed over her photon-amp image. Cumulus clouds of solid light – reds, blues, and greens – caves, passages wide enough for a suit to traverse, dangerous cracks, the lake. Maybe fault zone was right after all. The surrounding area was rotten with cavities, as if the rock was mouldy.

  Then there was Dennis Naverro to cultivate, one of the crash team’s remaining two sac psychics. Melvyn had wanted to widen some of the cracks leading off from the cave to give the team greater tactical positioning. She’d teamed up with Dennis, the two of them blasting away awkward chunks of rock with their Konica rip guns, kicking the debris out of the way. Turning the crack into a corridor an armour suit could run down. She would need Dennis later; he didn’t know it yet but he was going to pinpoint Leol Reiger for her.

  The flatscreens in the middle of the village allowed her to monitor the spaceplane’s progress. A squad of tekmercs had disembarked, penetrating the airlock sector.

  Victor and Lloyd McDonald squirted over the images from security cameras in the southern endcap docking complex. She watched the image with her right eye, leaving the left free to pick the rock pinnacles that needed clearing from the crack. The images interlaced, both ghostly, transparent, her attention wandering between the two. Concentration would give one a solidity, banishing the second.

  She saw Talbot Lombard standing in a corridor, hands raised above his head as the tekmercs boiled out of a space-plane reception room. Lockheed rip guns were levelled at him.

  ‘Hey, what is this?’ A handsome tanned face registered genuine bafflement.

  He was flung against the wall, two tekmercs gripped his arms and pinned him there, feet twitching twenty centimetres above the ground. An armour-suited figure walked ponderously down the corridor, and stopped in front of him.

  Leol Reiger. Had to be. Going for pose, as always. Crap artist.

  ‘Listen, man,’ Talbot Lombard yelled frantically. ‘Where’s Jepson? Which one of you is Jepson? I’ve got a deal, man!’

  ‘Congratulations, you just asked the right question,’ Leol Reiger said. ‘You get to live a few minutes more.’

  ‘Did Jepson send you?’

  ‘That’s right. Who are you?’

  ‘Tol, they call me Tol.’

  ‘Well, they call me Tol, where can I find the nuclear force generator data?’

  ‘Down in the cave. He’ll bring it, he said he would. I was supposed to take Jepson there tonight, after he’d put together a deal to manufacture atomic structuring technology.’

  ‘You’re the interface?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Between Jepson and who?’

  ‘I don’t know, man. He runs a drone, real smart hardwired. I couldn’t backtrack its interface.’

  ‘So you’ve never actually met this person?’

  ‘No, never.’

  Leol Reiger stepped back, making room for another tekmerc. This one stood so close to Talbot Lombard the suit helmet virtually touched his nose. Talbot Lombard closed his eyes and began to whine, fingers scrabbling against the rock wall.

  Suzi felt her belly rumble. The guy in the suit must be a psychic. Not that she was squeamish when it came to using them. Had to be done most deals these days. But there was no way to fight something like that, nothing to get hold of, nothing to kick. Fucking spooky, rutting around in someone’s mind.

  The two tekmercs holding Talbot Lombard let go, he dropped to the floor, legs collapsing. His breath was coming in huge judders.

  ‘The truth. Well done,’ said Leol Reiger. ‘Where are these caves of yours?’ His boot nudged Talbot Lombard. ‘Where?’

  ‘Northern endcap, they’re under the northern endcap. I swear.’

  ‘Show us.’ A gauntlet grasped Talbot Lombard’s upper arm and pulled him to his feet. He flopped about like a rag doll.

  ‘Now,’ said Reiger.

  The tekmerc squad marched off up the corridor, with Talbot Lombard scrambling to keep up. Twenty-five of the shits. Suzi wondered if she knew any of them. Most likely.

  ‘There are four coaches waiting for them in the docking complex’s station,’ Victor said. His voice was wonderfully smooth, audio silk. Him and Leol, mirror men, the same on opposite sides.

  ‘Are the Celestial Apostles clear?’ Melvyn asked.

  ‘Yes, we collected them from the Whitechapel station; they’re being parcelled out around the hotels. The tekmercs are all yours. I don’t want them loose in Hyde Cavern, Melvyn. Snuff them.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Suzi?’ Victor asked.

  ‘Here.’

  ‘This is Melvyn’s show, OK? I know you want Reiger. So do I. But it’s a collective kill. Dead is dead.’

  ‘What is this? You been rapping with Greg?’

  ‘I know you, Suzi.’

  She smiled unseen in her helmet. ‘Bollocks. I’m not gonna screw Melvyn’s deal. Hell, I’m gonna make him an offer when this is over, plug him into my catalogue. Too fucking good to waste his time with Event Horizon.’

  ‘Take care, Suzi.’

  ‘Yeah. I was kinda planning on it.’

  Give him this: Melvyn knew his tactics. She advised when he asked for her opinion, knowing how Leol ran his hardline deals, probing with expendables – the whole world was expendable to Leol. But figuring out the combat routine was down to Melvyn.

  Leol Reiger was heading for Moorgate station, using three of the coaches. It meant they’d be coming in through the lake cave. Two of the crash team were rigging sensors and setting charges to seal the lake off once the tekmercs were inside. There’d be no way out except through the village, and that was where Melvyn was concentrating his fire-power, the killing ground.

  The security captain stood on top of the staircase, directing the crash team into position. There were ledges up near the roof, in the cracks, behind the piles of rock rubble produced when the Celestials levelled the floor. Even a couple of them lying in a small cave above the ring of Solaris spots. Climbed up there like a pair of spiders.

  Suzi and Dennis Naverro were in one of the cracks which led back to three deep caves.

  ‘Suzi, Dennis, back a metre,’ Melvyn said.

  She took two steps back.

  ‘OK, that’s where your infrared signature cuts off.’

  ‘Got it.’ She loaded the co-ordinate into the suit guidance ’ware, then pushed her thumb into the flinty rock and scratched a line. ‘Hey, Dennis, you got any intuition loaded in your skull?’

  ‘No, sorry about that, Suzi,’ Dennis said. ‘All I got is espersense, see? Handy enough for our kind of work.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ He had the most gentle Welsh lilt, almost purring. She couldn’t visualise his face, must have seen it back at Listoel and on the Anastasia, though.

  Whoops and cheering came over her earpiece. When she looked back out into the cave there was a rust-coloured dog dashing round the huts, three armour suits in pursuit, their boots tearing long gashes in the thick carpet of moss. She would have just zapped the fucking thing.

  One of the team caught up with the dog. It howled as the gauntlet clamped round its hind leg.

  ‘Lock it in one of the huts,’ Melvyn said.

  Suzi called up the feed from the security centre. It was a roof camera in Moorgate station. The last two tekmercs were disappearing into the service tunnel. Quarter of an hour, maximum.

  She felt the hot calm of a combat high building inside. Checked round the cave. The two tech specialists rigging the lake cave charges had finished, walking down the staircase with Melvyn.

  Melvyn ordered the Solaris spots to be turned down. They were reduced to a vague ginger glimmer, filling the cave with dusky shadows. Her photon amp cut in, washing away the murky outlines with opalescent blue and grey silhouettes.

  She could hear Melvyn’s
footsteps as he made a final inspection round, clumping on the rock, then the softer wet thuds as he walked over the moss.

  ‘Radio silence until after we blow the charges,’ Melvyn said. ‘You know the form once they enter the kill ground. Get to it.’

  ‘Amen,’ Suzi mumbled. She plugged her suit’s interface socket into an optical lead the tech specialists had laid out, careful not to tug the thin fibre with her gauntlets. The suit’s ’ware meshed the image from the lake cave sensors into her photon-amp feed. It seemed to be working OK.

  The only noise left was a regular gurgling coming from a pump. It was directly opposite her, to one side of the staircase. Water from the lake was seeping through hairline splits in the rock, dribbling down the wall where it was collected in a rough pool that the Celestials had chopped into the floor. The pump fed their irrigation pipes, and supplied the communal washroom.

  She couldn’t hear the dog any more, not even with the suit’s external mike boosted up to full sensitivity.

  Dennis tapped her on the arm, and pointed back down the crack. She gave him a thumbs-up and retreated down past the scratch on the wall.

  The image from the lake cave wasn’t particularly clear, the sensor was sitting behind one of the biolum panels, looking down on the entrance which Leol’s squad would come through.

  Twelve minutes. The prick was taking his own good time.

  Weapons Check.

  Symbology zipped through her mind. Everything was on line, rip gun magazines charged, hardware functional, targeting sensors operative. Just like the previous eight times.

  Something moved in the lake cave. A reconnaissance disk, skipping erratically through the air like a clockwork bat. Sensors picked up its datalink emission, high-pitched cluttering.

  The first tekmerc came through the entrance, rip gun tracking round the cave. There was a burst of coded radio pulses. The rest of the squad began to move in.

  Suzi crossed herself, and started counting the tekmercs. Talbot Lombard was hustled along by the eighth squad member. He looked terrible, white, sweating, little spasms running down his spine.

  More coded radio chatter was exchanged. The reconnaissance disk coasted along the passage towards the village cave.